CHAPTER XV.
V. CHEVILLERE TO B. RANDOLPH.
(In continuation.)
"New-York, 18--.
"The little coincidences of real life are of much more frequent occurrence than is generally allowed by our prim historians. Arthur and his companion had not long departed, when Lamar and Damon came in. I mentioned their visit to the former, when, picking up the card and examining it with evident surprise, he placed his finger upon the number of the street, and held it across the table for Damon to see it, who immediately exclaimed, 'Well! I'm flambergasted now! if that ain't what I call a _leetle_ particular.'
"'Why, what is the matter?' said I, astonished in my turn at their astonishment.
"'Oh, nothing more,' said Lamar, 'than that Damon and myself have but just come from the very door upon which that name and number are placed.'
"'Are you acquainted with the family?' said I.
"'No,' replied he; 'I was standing opposite to the door in question, when a young lady alighted from her carriage and entered the house; not, however, before she suddenly stopped and took a searching look at your humble servant.'
"'Had you ever seen her before?'
"'If I am not mistaken she is the same young lady whom I saw two years ago at the Virginia springs, when I obtained leave from college to go there on account of my health; she was then quite young; just entering her teens, I should suppose.'
"'Ah! ha! have I caught you at last?' said I, as Lamar began to redden under a searching glance; 'then there was some foundation for the stories which followed you upon that occasion.'
"'Bah!' said he, 'they were all nonsense; but come, Damon, tell Chevillere what fine stump speeches you heard this morning at a New-York election.'
"I saw his drift in amusing me with Damon, and I was indeed quite willing to be so amused.
"'Smash me if I heard any speeches,' said Damon, 'nor saw any candidates either; they manage them things here quite after a different fashion.'
"'Why, how do they manage them, if they have no candidates and no speeches?' said I.
"'By the art of hocus pocus, I believe,' continued Damon; 'I had whetted my appetite for a New-York speech till I was completely on a wire edge, by the time we got to the polls; then they had a parcel of chaps standing behind a little counter, with gold headed poles, like freemasons in a cake-shop, playing at long-pole with the boys. Why! where's the election,' said I, to a chap outside the counter, with one black eye too many. 'Right under your nose,' said he; 'clap down your tickets and kiss the calf-skin, as I did just now;' and then he cramm'd my hands full of little bits of paper, 'H----l in the West,' said I, 'are we going to have no speeches, no drink, no fighten?' 'O!' said he, 'there's plenty of drink in the bar-room next door, and you can get your stomach full of fight, if you will walk down to the _Five Points_.'
"'And how do the people know whom they vote for?' said I to Lamar.
"His answer satisfied me that Damon's account of the business was nearly correct as to matters of fact; and that the New-Yorkers never have what we call 'stump speeches,' and never personally know, or even see their representatives. These city mobocracies, composed as they are, principally of wild Irish, are terrible things; but I must adhere to our bargain, to have nothing to do with politics.
"Lamar has evidently ripped up an old wound this morning, and I am truly rejoiced thereat; we shall take an early day to pay the visit spoken of, at which time I shall observe the gentleman's movements, and see if I cannot treasure up a little ammunition for future use, wherewithal to pay off old scores against him.
"You recollect, perhaps, the old woman's comfort in a time of great famine; 'she thanked God her neighbours were as bad off as herself.' I find very little comfort in this truly philanthropic doctrine, save from occasionally amusing myself with anticipations of Lamar's more fashionable dilemma.
"The Kentuckian's pulsations seem to be regulated by a gigantic and equipoised animal impulse. There is very little sinking of the heart in gloomy anticipation, with him; he enjoys the present, uninterrupted by the past or future. After all, are not these hardy and free sons of the west the happiest of all created beings? They enjoy nearly every thing that we do, perhaps not exactly in the same degree, but certainly with as much of the heart, if not so much of the head; I really envy Damon his hearty and joyous laughs, such as I could once indulge in myself, and I have often asked what is it that has made the change? Can you answer the question, Randolph?
"I once thought that you and Lamar would laugh it on through life, but it seems that you have scarcely started, each in his distinct career, before you begin sowing the seeds of your future sorrows, don't be frightened; it is the appointed race we must all run, sooner or later; we cannot be joyous and jovial college-lads all our days; but we may, and I hope will, be calm and tranquil old _country gentlemen_.
"But pshaw! I grow old before my time; 'sufficient for the day is the evil thereof;' lay that flattering unction to your soul, and all will soon be well, that is now ill with you.
"The more I see of these northern states, the more I am convinced that some great revolution awaits our own cherished communities. Revolutions, whether sudden or gradual, are fearful things; we learn to feel attachments to those things which they tear up, as a poor cripple feels attached to the mortified limb, that must be amputated to save his life. A line of demarkation in such a case is distinctly drawn between the diseased and the healthy flesh. Such a line is now drawing between the slave and free states, I fear. God send that the disease may be cured without amputation, and before mortification takes place. I know that this latter is your own belief. What think you now, since you have seen the greater extent of the disease? Truly,
"V. CHEVILLERE."